


The Christmas Star

by Dawnwind



Category: Starsky and Hutch - Fandom
Genre: Christmas, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-15
Updated: 2011-12-15
Packaged: 2017-10-27 09:28:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/294244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dawnwind/pseuds/Dawnwind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hutch has a Christmas present for Starsky that can't be bought or wrapped with colored paper.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Christmas Star

The Christmas Star  
by  
Dawnwind

The front end of the LTD seemed suspended into open space, high above the sprawling valley floor. Hutch wrenched the wheel to the left and the car swung back onto the narrow winding road, climbing ever higher.

Starsky clutched the arm rest, refusing to show fear despite feeling that the car could plunge down a sheer cliff into night dark nothingness. _Where the hell were they going?_

"Hutch!" Starsky groaned. "I want to go home and sleep in my own bed, then wake up to look at my presents."

Hutch snorted inelegantly. "Starsk, you're thirty four years old. You do know that Santa doesn't come down a magical chimney and bring you gifts."

"Hardy har-har." Starsky curled his lip, glancing out the side window, although all he could see was trees. "Ever try stand-up? You'd kill the house."

"And here I always thought you were the funny one of the partnership." Hutch stared at the dark road, clutching the steering wheel with both hands. "And I was the straight man."

"You said it, not me." Starsky waved a hand at the shadowy eucalyptus and oak that grew inches from the roadway. "So why exactly are you taking me on a tour of the canyons on Christmas Eve, at frigging midnight? It's cold out there!"

"We're in a car with the heater on," Hutch said patiently. "And while the temperature did drop below 40 tonight, you're in no danger of frostbite. This is southern California, not the North Pole."

The car slowed and he drove more cautiously around a double blind turn that nearly put Starsky's stomach in his throat.

"Hutch, this road ain't fun in the daytime—at night I keep thinking we're gonna pitch right off a ledge and this bucket of bolts will roll all the way down to smash right in front of Bay City Hall."

"The suspension on my car is in tip-top condition." Hutch took another tight turn, the car's headlights arching into the inky blackness of a grove of menthol scented trees and then back onto the dirt cliff wall.

For a moment, Starsky saw the startled eyes of a young buck before the deer bounded up the hill to safety. "At the risk of repeating myself, where the hell are we going?" Starsky growled. "Tell me quick or I'm hopping out and walking back to civilization."

"That I'd like to see."

Starsky caught Hutch's fond smile and sat back more calmly. Hutch had something special planned in that odd brain of his—probably along the lines of a tree planted just for Starsky or a special bench with his name engraved on the back.

There'd been a time when Starsky found those sorts of gifts annoyingly unhip. Unless he could wear it, eat it or play with it, Starsky hadn't been interested in immaterial presents.

How times change, he reflected. Life had a way of altering the way a person looked at things. What had once seemed impersonal now was thoughtful and appreciated. He smiled to himself, watching Hutch manhandle the car's stiff transmission. Starsky didn't just cherish his life more now days, barely six months after being shot three times, he embraced all of the quirks life threw at him. Hutch, once a best friend, had become more. Starsky wasn't even sure he could put his gratitude, his—whatever was more than friendship—into words, but he felt it down deep.

So, with that new frame of mind, he was content to have Hutch take him hither and yon, out into the dark— potentially snake and bear infested--wilderness just for a look at the Bay City view at midnight. As long as they didn't have to get out of the car!

Hutch wrestled the big car through a right hand turn where the front end once again seemed to hang out over emptiness for heart-rending seconds. And then suddenly they were driving in a wide open expanse flanked by trees on two sides. The pavement ended abruptly, but the ground under the wheels was flat and surprisingly smooth.

"This is it." Hutch nearly purred with satisfaction. He put the car in park and sighed, turning to look at Starsky.

The smile on Hutch's face nearly turned Starsky to jelly.

Man, he wasn't usually so affected by Hutch's glee. Or maybe he was, but it didn't usually cause him to throw a woody. Starsky pressed both hands into his lap, astonished at this rapid arousal. He sucked in a deep breath, glad the interior of the car was so dark. If he could only seen the dull sheen of Hutch's blond hair and the whites of his eyes, then Hutch couldn't see much of him, either.

"What exactly is this place?" Starsky asked to distract himself from his hard-on. As the pings of the cooling car engine died away, he realized how very quiet it was up here. Serene, almost.

"I came up here a few months ago to meditate," Hutch said, taking in the view. "I helped."

Starsky looked down at the bright sprawl of Bay City in the valley below. Points of neon and fluorescence twinkled in the night, the occasional red and green Christmas decoration blinking like runway lights to guide Santa Claus to his destination.

The sky spread around them like black ink spilled on wet paper. What seemed all one color at first was actually infinite shades of black, dark gray and deep navy blue swirled together as if a giant had swiped his paint brush lazily across his canvas and then sprinkled glittering stars in its wake. The moon was directly above, a pregnant curve lying on her back with her mound of belly pointed upwards. Starsky felt like he could reach outside the car window and grab a handful of stars. He'd never seen the sky so full, so majestic, when standing in Bay City under the smog that collected in the Los Angeles basin.

"It's…" He actually didn't have words. And here he'd thought Hutch overly sentimental for coming up here when they could have sacked out in front of the TV with spiked eggnog and sugar cookies.

"Breathtaking?" Hutch smiled sweetly, reaching out to brush his fingertips against Starsky's replacement leather jacket.

"Took the words right out of my mouth." Starsky looked away from nature's brilliance and into the equal beauty of Hutch's eyes. He felt like he was dropping from a great height into a deep crystalline pool. Starsky gulped, his breath snatched away entirely.

"Starsk?" Hutch asked hesitantly.

Starsky teleported, there was no other word for it. One moment he was in his seat, almost a foot from Hutch and the next, they were kissing, their lips locked together forever.

"Wow!" Starsky pulled back enough to make sure he was really kissing Hutch and it wasn't some crazy-ass dream brought on by too much eggnog and sugar cookies. He'd had those, although, usually, they were due to the morphine he'd used for pain after the shooting. "How did…what was that?"

Hutch kissed him in return, his mustache slightly bristly and soft at the same time.

Starsky pinched himself, to make sure he was really awake. Reassuringly, it hurt, and then he gasped when Hutch's tongue swam into his mouth. Pursing his lips slightly, Starsky sucked on Hutch's, feeling the silky sleekness of Hutch's tongue glossing over his own. That was terrific. "Did you know that was going to happen?" he asked when he could speak.

"I hoped it would," Hutch said with surprising shyness for someone who was just Frenching him.

"I…" Starsky sat back, completely amazed and dazzlingly happy. "I didn't expect it, but in a way, I did."

"You always did make the most illogical sense." Hutch chuckled. "This was just supposed to thank you for my gift but…" He held his hands up in a 'what can you do' gesture. "I wished for more."

"Sentimental fool," Starsky chided. "Got your wish?" He curled his hand into Hutch's, noticing, not for the first time, that Hutch could close his fingers completely around Starsky's. He wasn't used to being smaller than his---date? But it felt nice to be here with Hutch. "I didn't give you any kinda gift."

Hutch lifted their joined hands and pressed his lips to their thumbs. "You gave me the greatest gift of all, on May 18th."

"I wasn't up to much that day." Starsky smiled ruefully, quite content to sit like a couple of teenagers on their first date, holding hands on Lover's lane. "Care to fill me in?"

"You gave me hope," Hutch said. "If 1978 was hard for me—for lots of reasons, not the least of which was Van being murdered in my apartment, then '79 was just…" He shrugged, squeezing Starsky's hand more tightly. "I had this—despair inside. I think it culminated sometime between Kira and Marianne. Nothing seemed good or right anymore. I could feel some…lightening when I was near you, but even that could backfire just as easily as not. And then all I wanted to do was lash out, criticize."

"The job got to you," Starsky said into the darkness, holding on.

"Life didn't seem worth shit for a while," Hutch looked over at him, tears filming his eyes. "And that's the honest truth."

"Did you think about…" Starsky asked, horrified. He'd known Hutch was depressed but surely not to the point of ending it all? He reached up to dab at the tears and Hutch leaned into his palm.

"A couple nights." Hutch nodded against Starsky's hand with obviously reluctance. "I didn't have a plan or even a…method…"

"Hutch!" Starsky jerked as if touched by an electric wire. "Why didn't you call me? Tell me?"

"I did call, so many times." Hutch took a breath that seemed to clear out something old and tired. A single line of moisture slid down one cheek. "Most of the time, I hung up, content to know you were there but others—"

"I remember." Starsky used his thumb to smooth away the tears. "You'd call late, wanting pizza, a movie. I can't ever refuse you, and if I thought it was strange, it didn't matter because any time with you is better than with anyone else."

"You took my hand and lead me through hell, whether you knew it or not."

"God, Hutch…" Starsky thought back to those late nights. Often as not, the movie on the TV would be forgotten for the sheer joy of talking to Hutch about everything and nothing. Several times, Starsky had fallen asleep on Hutch's shoulder and waked up curled around him, Hutch snoring like a moose. He'd known Hutch was depressed, had sensed a desperation in him, but the idea that Hutch even harbored thoughts of suicide was horrific. "But I still didn't give you a gift."

"Love, hope, your life—all laid out for me," Hutch leaned to kiss him chastely on the forehead, like a blessing. "I had my ups and downs during Spring—more up than down, to be honest, but it wasn't great by any means. Then you walked up beside me, no questions, no condemnation, and threw your badge into the sea with mine. That meant everything."

"I couldn't abandon you," Starsky said, cheek to cheek, Hutch's warmth and strength merging with his own. "If there was any day I felt your---bleakness, it was that afternoon."

"And then you got shot." Hutch sucked in a breath as if he'd felt the bullets pierce his lungs, too. He cupped Starsky's chin with both hands, gazing into his eyes.

Starsky felt such an overwhelming rush of love for this man that he trembled. "Hutch—"

"Ssh," Hutch used both thumbs to stroke Starsky's jaw line. "I truly didn't know how to function without you. You were so still, so…caught between two worlds, one foot in life and the other…"

"No," Starsky whispered into Hutch's fingers tracing his lips. "I didn't die."

"When you survived the cardiac arrest, it was like there was this tiny flame inside me," Hutch traced his fingertips up the planes of Starsky's face, delicately brushing over his whiskery stubble to the sharp jut of his cheekbones. "Did you ever...?" He laughed before he finished his sentence. "No, I know you didn't."

"What?" All Starsky had to do was turn his head mere inches to kiss Hutch's wrist.

"I already know you weren't a Boy Scout."

"You were a Sea Scout," Starsky stuck out his tongue, licking the same spot that he'd kissed. Turned out, Hutch was ticklish right there.

Hutch giggled.

That was something Starsky didn't hear every day. And he wanted to, in the worst way. He wiggled his tongue in the direction of Hutch's slobbery wrist.

Hutch pulled both hands away, leveling the dreaded Hutchinson forefinger. "Stay away."

"And here I thought you liked me," Starsky pouted, purposefully pushing out his bottom lip. This was fun—and lightened the mood considerably.

"I like most things about you," Hutch admitted, crossing his arms and regarding Starsky suspiciously. "But that was fiendish."

"In a good way or…" Starsky wagged his palms, itching to tickle some other unprotected portion of Hutchinson anatomy. "Or a bad way?"

"You distracted me!" Hutch narrowed his eyes. "I was trying to finish--."

Starsky wished there was just a little more light. With Hutch backed up against the driver's side window, he couldn't see those clear blue eyes clearly.

"I had this all planned," Hutch said with good-natured pique. "As usual, you sauntered in and change everything about me."

"I'm going to have to repeat myself, aren't I?" Starsky grinned, pulling out the charm that always had Hutch melting like butter in the hot sun. Of course, it was getting damned cold in the car without the motor, or heater on. "Is that a bad thing or—"

"Good. Because God knows, I needed shaking up from the get-go." Hutch poked Starsky in the chest with his pointy finger.

"And you're always there to take me down a peg." Starsky captured Hutch's finger with both hands. "I can't help it if I'm a round peg bein' forced into a square hole."

"Oh, my God, does your mind always go straight to sex?" Hutch roared with laughter.

"What?" Belatedly, Starsky realized the raunchy implications. "Okay, that ain't what I meant, but…" He thought about it some more. "Is that…possible?" he asked, deliberately casual. He'd had circle jerk-offs with other guys. It was fairly common in the Army, but penetration…that he wasn't at all sure about.

"Of course, it's possible. If---" Hutch broke off, obviously considering what he'd nearly proposed. "You will always be my round peg." He settled his big, warm hand over Starsky's groin. "Where ever it fits into."

"Damn, if I knew it was this easy to get you to talk dirty, I've have started years ago." Starsky thrust into Hutch's palm. "You still haven't clued me in on this gift I supposedly gave you." He clasped Hutch's wrist to keep that hand right where it was, covering the erection currently drilling a hole through his zipper.

"How do you expect me to think like this?" Hutch yelped.

"You started it," Starsky murmured, brushing the back of his knuckles across Hutch's chest, a caress that had never felt so intimate. Didn't matter that they were scrunched into the front seat, so close together that the steering wheel had to be digging into Hutch's ribs.

Hutch took a deep breath, bright wonder on his face when he looked at Starsky. "You were in a coma for three days—and I felt like I was dying right along with you. But after the doctor told me you were still alive, I felt this tiny flicker—" he reluctantly pulled back his hand, curling the fingers in as if he held a precious tiny flame that had to be protected until it increased in size, "of hope. It was weak because I had nothing left to believe in, but I clung to that thing until you opened your eyes." He choked, just once, and continued speaking. "Best damned gift I ever had in my entire life, Starsk. Seeing you open your eyes, and know me."

"You were all I wanted to see." Starsky shivered, pretending he wasn't a little choked up himself.

"You gave me hope that there was a future, and I will never lose that again," Hutch vowed, kissing him.

Starsky gasped, tremors running the length of his spine, and just about crawled into Hutch's lap to keep the kissing going. That lasted a good, long time.

"Are you cold?" Hutch had both hands tangled in Starsky's hair.

"Now that you mention it—" It was far easier to grouse about how cold it was than admit that Hutch had reached right in and taken possession of Starsky's heart. "It's freezing in here. Did you think of that when you planned this…" He laughed, ruining his rant. "Romantic get away? Trust a guy from Minnesota to want to make out in the winter."

"You are such a complainer." Hutch chuckled. "Get out and check the trunk."

"You got more surprises?" Starsky jumped out to pop the trunk. There was a red and black checked blanket, an old fashioned thermos and a sack of what smelled like cookies. "You are a Sea Scout, you came prepared!"

Hutch walked up behind him, wrapping his arms around Starsky's waist. "And I know how to make a fire with a flint and rock, if need's be. Got me through a lot of cold winters in Duluth." He tugged the blanket out of the trunk and swirled it around both of them. "However, I can think of other things that will keep us warm tonight."

"Whatcha have in mind?" Starsky asked, as bawdy as possible. He bumped his hip against Hutch's with a come-on worthy of the hookers on Main Street.

"Exploration and discovery," Hutch said, nuzzling his neck. "As long as you want to."

"Ain't nothing I want more," Starsky agreed. "Inside the car?"

"How will we see the stars inside the car?" Hutch nudged Starsky around the LTD, settling them on the ground with a tarp underneath them.

"You want to look at the stars?" Starsky wailed. "Now?"

"That's not all I want to do." Hutch cuddled close with a grin that foretold so many other things.

It was cold, but with the red and black wool blanket and Hutch curled around him, Starsky didn't mind in the slightest. "If this is my Christmas present this year, it beats a tree in the park or socks hands down." He pressed a kiss into Hutch's leather jacket clad shoulder. "No need for alternations or returns."

"I wasn't sure—" Hutch breathed out and there was an actual vapor cloud from his mouth.

"But you had hope." Starsky blew out intentionally slowly to watch the cloud of his breath form in the cold.

Hutch nodded. "And love." He tilted his head back to gaze at the starry sky wrapped around their sanctuary.

Starsky couldn't take his eyes off Hutch. He hadn't realized how much the depression, worry and sorry had aged him. Hutch suddenly looked years younger with an immense weight lifted off his shoulders. He seemed to glow like one of the heavenly bodies above them.

"My grandfather Hutchinson used to take me out on much colder Christmas Eves than this," Hutch said, reaching up as if he could pluck the stars from the firmament. "See that one near the moon?"

"That's Venus," Starsky knew that much. Hutch pointed out either Mars or Venus on any night they had stakeout or were driving home late after a double shift.

"No, it isn't," Hutch said with a hint of professorial lecture voice. He shifted his forefinger about half an inch to the west, left of the moon. "Those two stars are Venus and Jupiter, common in the winter sky in this latitude."

Starsky squinted, comparing the familiar bright points of light with the new one. "Maybe Mars?"

"That's the Christmas Star," Hutch said confidently. "Only visible for one night a year."

"There's no such thing!" Starsky snorted. Hutch was rarely given to such flights of fancy, —all this confession of love had short circuited his usual intellect. Yet, there in the sky was a golden star, pointing to the east.

"You have to have hope." Hutch smiled tranquilly.

Starsky kissed him, there was nothing else to do. "Merry Christmas, blintz."

"Merry Christmas, puce goose."

Concentrating on Hutch, Starsky caught just a flicker of movement from the corner of his eye. He turned almost too late, the shadow of something oddly shaped—was that possibly the runner of a sleigh and---no, he hadn't seen a brief glimpse of reindeer antlers crossing the moon.

"Hutch, did you see that?" Starsky stared, searching for proof of Santa's annual trip. "It was…"

"Hope," Hutch repeated.

Starsky heard the jingle of sleigh bells when Hutch kissed him again.

FIN


End file.
